


10 Reasons to Sneak Vodka into Your First Staff Meeting

by borderlinecritical (skulls_and_stripes)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Abusive Jasper/Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe), Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, Past Abuse, Past Jasper/Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe), Second person POV, Suicide, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22288633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/borderlinecritical
Summary: Your name is Lapis Lazuli. You're a high school student, and you've got this totally bullshit staff meeting for your part-time job at KFC. In a desperate attempt to cope with the boredom, you sneak some vodka in with you. Anxiety about being found out and justifiably fired consumes you, and your fear turns to guilt. So, you think of ten reasons why it's okay.
Relationships: Jasper/Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	10 Reasons to Sneak Vodka into Your First Staff Meeting

You know the story. You're a high school student who got a part-time job at KFC, for some reason. Maybe you had a bunch of friends working there, or maybe you were the teacher's pet on the SRC and your devotion to taking as many extra-curricular activities as possible led you to feel you ought to get a job, or maybe you just wanted the money. Either way, you work there now.

You don't actually work there very much, though. You had hoped that it would alleviate some of the boredom that comes from being a relatively lonely teenager with no clubs or extracurriculars to keep you busy, but due to a combination of being new and being only a part-time employee, you only work one shift a week, and that shift is a measly four hours. The coworkers that you already knew outside of work -- the ones that inspired you to apply in the first place -- rarely, if ever, share shifts with you, and when they do you can't even talk to them because they're running the drive-thru and you're on front counter. You're feeling increasingly like work, overall, sucks.

But your measly minimum wage pay keeps you coming. It's tiny, and if you actually had to buy your own food and pay your own bills you would quit in an instant because it basically amounts to nothing, but, well … your parents never gave you pocket money, so you rationalise it by saying that even if it's basically child labour, it's still ten bucks more than you'd be getting otherwise.

You're on your way to the drink coolroom to fill up the front counter fridge when you see a piece of A4 paper stuck to the wall. It details, in plain black font covered in obnoxious purple highlighter, that there's a staff meeting on the 17th. You're not sure exactly what it's for, but you've heard it mentioned that it's a routine thing at the store, so you figure you ought to go. Besides, it's paid.

And you'll finally get to see the coworkers that inspired you to apply in the first place.

You can't buy your own alcohol. There are several reasons for that. The first, and most obvious, is that you're a minor. The second is that while you are disturbingly aware of the fact that just presenting your ID with confidence will convince most bartenders that you must be old enough and they very rarely check the actual date, the only ID you have is a library card from middle school, and seeing that your photo clearly depicts a twelve-year-old would obviously prompt them to check your birthday. The third is that you're broke.

You see, you like to think of yourself as a very creative person. Sometimes you break out your old ukulele and make music. Sometimes you borrow your mother's paint and make art. And sometimes you make poor financial decisions.

You spent most of your last pathetically tiny paycheck yesterday on a drastically overpriced baseball cap for your "butchsona", Bob. You're still not sure what a butchsona is.

Luckily, you're not completely friendless. You're not quite sure how Amethyst gets her hands on the booze, but she gives it to you cheaper than you could get it otherwise, doesn't snitch, and doesn't ask questions. It's a rather good deal you've got.

You're paranoid about getting in trouble for it, and you try to ease your guilt by making excuses. You come up with ten reasons why, actually, sneaking vodka into a staff meeting isn't such a bad idea, even though this is a new job and you really should be putting your best foot forward.

**#1: You're Growing Up**

After all, having a job is what adults do, right? Some of your peers even laughed at you when you first announced the interview, stating that you didn't need to work until you were an adult. But the fact that you recognized that you could benefit from getting some practice and experience proves that you're more mature than any of your peers, and therefore you're mature enough to drink.

You decide to take full responsibility for this meeting, to prove how mature you are. You tell your parents about it, but you don't really care if they're okay with you going or not. You scoff at the people who tell the managers they can't make it because their parents are working and they can't get a lift, and you think you're so much better than them, even though it's hardly their fault that you live within walking distance of the store and they don't.

When you realise that the meeting starts at 7:45AM, it's not your mother that realises you've spent the last several weeks staying up till eleven PM and waking up at eight or nine in the morning, it's you, and you make the choice to go to bed earlier to get your sleep schedule back on track. You're the one that sets a reminder on your phone for the day before to turn your six AM alarm on, and showers the night before to save time, because God knows you're not a morning person. Unlike the interview, where your mother insisted on preparing an outfit made from clothes you see so rarely you don't even know if they're yours, you choose your own outfit for the meeting. It's a blue dress with a dark blue diamond symbol in the middle - professional, but you can make it look casual in a moment's notice if the meeting atmosphere is more casual than expected. You figure it doesn't have to be too formal, since you know from experience with your orientation that none of those unprofessional teens take this as seriously as you do, and there's sure to be someone there in a tank top and shorts.

You take a shitty leather handbag with you. You got it yesterday, during the same trip as the overpriced baseball cap for your butchsona. You actually went out that day in search of a bag, but you were looking for a specific type -- you can't quite articulate what you wanted, but you were sure you would know it if you saw it. So you searched every store in the mall for a bag that, in your words, "looks like something I would buy", which is pretty stupid, and somewhere along the way you got distracted and brought a cap. You never ended up finding a bag you liked, and resorted to doubling back to the first shop you entered and getting the first one you saw, even though you didn't like it.

You put an umbrella in the bag, a shitty one you brought yesterday from the same shop as the shitty bag. The skies are clear now, but it poured yesterday and you want to be prepared. You also shove in a red and navy flannel, something you also brought for your butchsona, telling yourself that you'll wear it over the dress if you need to seem more casual, even though a part of you knows you'd never have the courage to wear a poorly-matched outfit to a meeting. You also shove in a flask.

You walk down to that meeting at 7:10. It's not even a half hour walk and you could afford to wait another ten minutes, but you want to be prepared. When you arrive at 7:35, there are already people there, some of whom you know, but mostly strangers. The actual meeting doesn't start until eight, fifteen minutes later than advertised. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

You run your hands over the vodka bottle in your bag, preparing to drink for the first time. You think about how mature you are. But then you look around at all your coworkers, mostly wearing hoodies and sweatpants, and you feel so out of place in your dress. And then you see how all your coworkers are laughing and being friends, and you realise that you have no friends here. That despite your ability to get a job and acquire alcohol and barely scrape a passing mark on your exams, you're still not mature enough to have a normal, healthy relationship, even a platonic one. You like to think you're basically an adult, but socially speaking, you're a kid compared to these people.

**#2: You Can Be A Kid**

Because seriously, when else are you going to be able to get away with bringing alcohol into a staff meeting?

The managers have a duty of care toward you since you're a minor, sure, but all they'll do is tell the cops and your parents, neither of whom will really care that much. And, of course, if you get caught you'll be fired immediately. But honestly, does it really matter? Sure, it'll suck having to admit it to your parents that you got fired, but their anger will pass -- and besides, you can always delay the inevitable by choosing a four-hour block in your week when you'd like a bit of free time and pretending you have a shift then. That'll work at least until they start questioning why you haven't started getting more hours, or until they notice that you're not spending any money and yet haven't mentioned saving for anything. Even then you could just start pretending to work more hours and lie about saving up for a birthday.

Eventually it would just fall apart and they would be even more upset that you lied for so long, but hey, it would be good while it would last.

One day, you'll be an adult. You'll have moved away from the shithole that is Beach City at the first chance, in a way that will probably make your parents angry enough that it'll be awkward to call them and ask for help. You'll be in a new city, and you'll have to take full responsibility for your wellbeing -- all the rent, bills, and food is on you. Which means that the likely shitty minimum wage job you end up reluctantly taking -- quite possibly at another KFC, you realise now -- will be necessary to keep you afloat. Which means you won't be able to do stupid things like bringing vodka to staff meetings.

You're never again going to have a job that means so little to you, that you could so easily throw away at a moment's notice. Getting caught with alcohol in a staff meeting might cause a downward spiral that would lead to your death as an adult, but now? Well, best case scenario you have fun and everything's fine, worst case scenario you lose a shitty job that you didn't like that much anyway.

It doesn't really matter if you get fired. It's not like you've got a family to feed.

Being a teenager is all about doing things that you won't get another chance to do, because you have your parents as a safety net. Even if you've driven everyone else away, your parents are legally required to keep you alive until your eighteenth birthday. Once you get to the adult world, they're not required to do anything, and if you end up in a shitty situation that's entirely your fault, well, you might just be totally fucked.

So you wait for the managers to arrive with their pre-meeting snacks, which are a necessity to persuade teenagers to come to anything. They bring paper cups and bottles of soft drink. You fill your cup with coke, and when nobody's looking, you face the corner of the restaurant and pour a tiny amount of vodka in.

It's barely more than a drop, and you sincerely doubt that it'll be enough to get you drunk, or even enough to placebo you into getting yourself drunk. You gulp it down anyway, and savour the feeling of adventure and daring that it gives you, even though logically you know that a drop of alcohol in a cup of coke isn't going to have any effect.

You savour it. It's not like you'll get another chance any time soon.

**#3: You Don't Really Need To Pay Attention In These Meetings Anyway**

Seriously, this is all bullshit.

First of all, plenty of people aren't even coming. The online site you use to communicate has an option to publicly post that you won't be making it, and plenty of people can't. Plenty more will have messaged a manager, and some of them probably won't have bothered to give prior notice of their non-attendance at all. A 7:45-9:45 timeslot isn't exactly the sort of thing that's likely to work with everyone's schedules. If the information was really that important, they would put it online, or say it in-store, or have multiple meetings so that nobody's left unable to attend. 

You're hesitant to actually drink much of your vodka, partially because you want to save it for later and partially because some part of you wants to be sober, so you can actually process what's being told to you. Or more accurately, so you don't get ridiculously drunk and make a complete fool of yourself at your new workplace, because there's not much to process.

Your Restaurant General Manager, a tall pink-haired woman by the name of Rose, gleefully explains the meeting agenda. First you'll get to eat some of their free food and take a seat. Then you'll go over areas that you need to improve -- most of which doesn't apply to you because despite having been here for six weeks already, you still haven't been trained on the majority of equipment or taught what any of the important acronyms mean. Next is some bullshit called the KFC Games where you compete with other stores, but that's far in the future, and they'll be picking their best employees, which means the new kid has no reason to be involved at all. A possible ~fun staff outing~ that isn't for ages, and you probably won't attend anyway. Then awards for being good employees, except you won't get any, because you're new. Finally, a practice of a fire evacuation, which is shitty, because it's started raining by now and it'll be annoying to pretend there's a fire when it's raining.

Most of this stuff is going to be either basic logic or stuff that only applies to other, more experienced team members. Now that the meeting's started, you can't very well visibly pour more vodka into your cup; everyone's sitting nicely, like in class, and you're near the front for some reason, so a manager would notice immediately if you tried. But you gulp down your coke, with two or three drops of vodka in it, and hope that maybe you can placebo yourself into being drunk.

**#4: No, Seriously, These Meetings Are Too Boring To Make It Through Them Sober**

You yawn. You stare at your empty cup. You wonder if you could get away with pouring vodka into it under the table, or behind the manager under the guise of refilling it with coke.

Fuck, you thought math class was boring.

First of all, the GES. The goddamned Guest Experience Survey. You're meant to get forty responses a period -- you've got twenty, so you're halfway there. You don't actually know what a period is. Well, you know what the word means -- it's a dot at the end of a sentence, a really bloody annoying week in more ways than one, and/or an unspecified length of time. You just don't know how long a "period" is in the context of the GES, and it would be awkward to ask, so you just don't.

So anyway, you all need to be really pushing to remind every customer that there's a survey they can fill out online using information found on their receipt, and that they can get a free chips and drink by completing it. Notably, you've never seen anyone do this during your actual shifts. Even the people training you never told you to mention the GES, except for that one guy training you on front counter that one time, and if you remember correctly he's literally in charge of the entire GES thing.

As for the responses you've been getting, you all need a little improvement, apparently. Customers say you're not friendly enough, that your conversations with coworkers are too loud and customers can hear them, and that your overall speed could be faster. You feel oddly guilty about all of this, even though you haven't been here long enough to have caused any real problems, and as the new kid, you have an excuse for some slip-ups. There's also a story about a small child who had to go to hospital for their burns because somebody messed with the settings for the potato and gravy warmer, which you feel oddly guilty about even though you've barely touched the potato and gravy.

There are some changes to peak speed, apparently. You're aiming for an average of one minute at all times. And something about ROCC. You tune most of that part out, because you're not actually sure what any of it means.

Next, KFC Games. You went over that briefly in orientation, and the way Rose explained it then made it seem like it could be fun, but now you realise how competitive it is. You'd like to volunteer, but you know you'd just drag the team down -- you barely know any of the procedures, and even when you do know what to do, you're embarrassingly slow. You watch as hands raise to volunteer, and silently wish you could do the same.

Then there's the staff outing. You have five hundred bucks to do something, but there's eighty-five employees so in practice it's only around three dollars a person. You can either do something that's fun but still cheap, which is stupid because anything the staff can do for fun for under three bucks they can do for free so there's no real need to wait for a big bonus, or you can each pitch in around five bucks to do something more fun, which is also stupid because what the fuck can you do for eight bucks anyway?

She asks for suggestions on what to do. You have no idea, because you've never been to a staff outing before and you have no idea what you could do. Besides, it's not until next school holidays anyway. Someone'll think of something.

Then, thank fuck, one of the managers who was in the back cooking more free food comes out to announce that she's finished with the hot food. There's hash browns and bacon, and literally nothing else. Oddly enough, none of the food you can choose from is actually KFC. Still, in the ensuing rush to get hot food, you can pretty easily refill your cup with more coke.

And more vodka.

**#5: If You're Drunk, The Stupid Things You Do Aren't Your Fault - It's Just Because You're Drunk**

When you're sober, you avert your eyes from the tall attractive girl sitting on a table on the other side of the room. When you're drunk, you stare at her like a goddamned straight boy and you love every second of it.

You're not actually drunk enough that it's difficult to stop yourself from staring, but you are drunk enough that you can tell yourself that any bad decisions you make right now are not on you.

You stare at hot girls like a fucking straight boy. Not a genuinely nice straight boy that tries to be an ally to women and LGBT people, but a misogynistic entitled straight boy who spends hours on end hyping up that he's such a nice guy so that at the slightest rejection from a woman, he can act like he's the victim of some tragic accursed life and it's her fault he went on a killing spree.

You stare at the short girl that trained you on your first shift, the one with the obnoxious yellow glasses. Her hair is tied into a messy bun, and not in the sense that it's a "messy bun" style -- it's just plain messy. When did she last brush it? She's wearing a green T-shirt with a yellow diamond symbol on it, and green tights with a dark green skirt. You silently judge her fashion sense as you stare at her legs.

You stare at the skinny girl with short hair. It's a sort of strawberry blonde colour, and you wonder if it's her natural colour. It doesn't look natural, but you had one shit with her in drive-thru, and she doesn't seem like the type to dye her hair. She has blue eyes, like you, but not like you. Her eyes are piercingly bright, but pale and faded; yours are dark blue, more realistic in comparison. You stare at her.

You stare at the tall dark-skinned girl with afro-textured hair in an impossibly cube-shaped style. She's wearing sunglasses, even though she's indoors, and a leather jacket. She seems like a badass, but if you had to guess, you wouldn't say she's a stereotypical bad girl -- just a girl who happens to be bad. Or, more accurately, badass. You stare at her.

You stare at the short dark-skinned girl with her hair dyed lavender. She's wearing just an oversized tank top and a pair of tights with holes in them, and her messy knee-length hair isn't even brushed. You feel more self-conscious than ever about your overly formal wear.

You stare at her.

You stare at her sister, too.

**#6: Watching People You Don't Know Get Awards For Things You Don't Understand Is Way More Fun When You're Kinda Buzzed**

The fifth coworker in a row gets an award for "constantly and consistently mentioning the GES to every customer" and honestly, it's way more entertaining than it should be.

You don't know him. But his face and demeanor is somehow entertaining. It's like that, uh, that TV show you've been watching. The sitcom. Well, actually it was a sitcom back in the nineties and now you think it's a dark exploration of the reality of depression and addiction. The one with, uh, the horse. Who fetishizes his own misery.

You might be kinda buzzed, now that you think about it. Maybe just the slightest bit tipsy. The guy sitting next to you makes a dumb joke and you laugh harder than you should, at which point you start to panic and hurriedly get more water in an attempt to sober yourself up before you get home and your parents figure out that you've been drinking.

Still, you gotta admit it's kinda funny, you know? Like, uh, that girl that just got the award for best Customer Service Team Member of the quarter. Her hair is just like that character! The one from, uh, he's the horse's daughter, except not the one that's actually his daughter, except the one that's actually his daughter is actually his half-sister. But this one, um, she's the horse's daughter in the sitcom thirty years ago, and then she's a child pop star, and then she's a drug addict.

You remember her death in the penultimate episode of season three, and then feel sad, and then immediately start needing to cover your mouth so you don't start giggling, because thinking of the penultimate episode makes you think of the finale of that season. The finale was quite a sad episode, really. The horse, upset with his kinda-not-really-sitcom-daughter's death, tries to kill himself. But oh fuck, that part before the suicide attempt where that joke about the spaghetti strainers finally pays off...

You begin to consider, in detail, the larger themes of the series. How the entire show is about learning to become a better person despite your failings. How the main character has hurt and traumatised so many people, and even indirectly caused his fair share of deaths, but he's also severely depressed. And his actions don't invalidate his depression and his depression doesn't excuse his actions, but the two just co-exist, related to each other but equally important. And how ironic it is that his feelings are worsened by the fact that nobody ever holds him accountable or finds out about the shitty things he did, but after he goes to rehab in season six and finally starts trying to be better people find out about his crimes.

Funny thing is, even though the season three finale was kinda funny, with the whole spaghetti strainers thing, it was also sad, y'know? Cause that character that dies, um, she overdoses on heroin in the penultimate episode and it's in the last few moments of that episode that she goes unresponsive, but she isn't confirmed dead until the finale. And her death really fucks up the main character, even more than the death of that guy who wouldn't give him closure by forgiving him for that time he got him fired for being gay, or rather didn't get him not fired by almost getting himself fired. And come to think of it, it's not until another character mentions her death in an argument that he actually starts trying to be better? So really the whole series from that point on centres around him trying to atone for, among other things, the death of that girl. That girl who has hair just like the coworker who just own Customer Service Team Member of the quarter.

You refill your glass with more water in a desperate attempt to sober up.

A tall, muscular girl goes to the front of the group to receive her gift card, which was a reward for a particularly good week in which she got three compliments on the GES in the span of one week. 

You find yourself avoiding eye contact, even though you couldn't stop staring.

**#7: I Mean, Seriously, You Kinda Have To Be At Least Tipsy If You Want To Have A Fire Drill In The Rain**

You're mostly sobered up by the time the awards are over, but you still can't help but indulge the childish part of your brain, the one that made boring fire drills in kindergarten more fun by pretending there was a real fire and you were a superhero, and you never really learned to have fire drills without pretending it's real.

It's raining. It's not raining badly enough to justify taking out your umbrella, especially for such a short trip, but it's definitely raining. A part of your brain knows that rain this light wouldn't actually prevent a fire in a bad situation -- for example, if there were several ovens in a confined space, like in, hypothetically, the back of a fast food restaurant -- but a part of your brain hasn't really sobered up as much as you'd like to think it has, and you think the entire concept of a fire being paradoxical and oxymoronic is fucking hilarious.

It's not until later that you'll realise that an extremely hot restaurant still being a fire hazard in light rain is, in fact, neither paradoxical or oxymoronic.

You follow your coworkers and superiors to the fire evacuation point, which is just the entrance to a nearby supermarket. You kind of feel like the supermarket could also be a fire hazard in some scenarios. But you're not a manager, so it's not your job to decide where the evacuation point should be. 

On the way there a coworker jokingly offers to give ten bucks to anyone who will jump in a deep puddle. You over-enthusiastically ask if she's serious, because you spent most of your last paycheck on a shitty umbrella, a shitty bag, and a drastically overpriced baseball cap for your butchsona, Bob. She gives you a funny look and asks what a butchsona is, and you can't answer, because nobody knows what a butchsona is, or if a butchsona is anything in the first place.

You jump in the puddle and ruin your shoes, which you're not too concerned about, because they don't quite fit right anyway and you honestly hated them, but you didn't realise how casual staff meetings are and you wanted somewhat professional shoes. The girl says she owes you the ten bucks, and you can't help but feel a little ripped off, because you know it's ridiculous to expect her to have been carrying around a ten dollar bill just in case she impulsively made a bet like this, but come on, you don't even know her name, so how are you meant to follow through on that?

You go to the fire point. You then proceed to slip on some wet ground and fall on your ass.

Thank fuck this isn't a real fire.

**#8: And Group Photos When You Feel Self-Conscious About Your Outfit Are Always Shitty**

You had expected that there may be some sort of photo. It's normal, after all -- they need to have photos of all staff members, probably multiple photos, for various reasons, and an all-staff meeting is a great opportunity to get a photo of everyone.

Normally you would be reluctant, or maybe even outright refuse -- you might slip into the supermarket unnoticed during the fire drill, since nobody knows you well enough to spot your absence. But you're too drunk to be self-conscious about your overly professional outift, your fancy dress in a sea of tank tops and shorts or hoodies and sweatpants. So you pose for the photo.

You kneel in the front, since you're not as tall as the freakishly tall people. For the first photo, you force a professional, friendly smile. For the second, you let your regular Resting Bitch Face show through. For the third, you fake an almost stereotypical girly smile and hold up a peace sign.

Then, that's it. You take out your phone. It's 9:45, exactly the time the meeting was meant to end. The fire drill happened in the last five minutes and was meant to be the last thing you did. You're ready to go home. You need to pee, you need to figure out what you're going to do with this vodka -- you can't throw it out, that would be a waste, but you'll throw up and/or do something really stupid with drunkenness if you finish it and you don't know where to hide it -- you need to sober up before you get home.

You should, by all logic, be free to go now. The manager explicitly stated the meeting would end now.

But no, apparently you need to go back inside to get new uniforms -- specifically, new hats that are only slightly different (and could have been handed out at literally any other point in the meeting), and shirts that are literally exactly the same.

Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

**#9: If You're Too Drunk To Remember Your Shirt Size, You Have An Excuse To Go To The Bathroom And Check**

Which is good, because you really have to pee now. This is your first time drinking alcohol, and you drank a lot of other liquids in your attempts to sober up. The fact that you wouldn't have to pee if you hadn't snuck vodka into your staff meeting isn't one that occurs to you.

You step into the store bathrooms under the pretense of checking your shirt size. You search for the least gross cubicle, which is the one that nobody's been in since the lock is broken, but that's fine, you'll be quick and nobody else is actually gonna come in. You briefly curse whoever's job it is to clean these bathrooms for doing such a shitty job, and then remember that it's your job, and you didn't do it when you were meant to on Saturday, goddammit.

You pee. You fix up your hair in the mirror. You take a swig of vodka straight from the bottle. You text your mom to tell her the meeting's running overtime and you'll be a little late home. You steel yourself, and then walk back out.

You see the lines of people waiting for shirts, and realise you forgot to check your shirt size.

It would be weird to go back in now, so you see Pearl asking for a ten and ask for one as well -- she's basically the same size as you, it'll be fine. You take a hat, which is only slightly different to the old hats, and put it on backwards. You look tough with a hat on backwards. This is why you have a butchsona.

You've got the uniform. You're free to go now. But you've texted your mom to warn that you'll be late, so you're also free to stay.

Your eyes linger on a tall, muscular woman with unruly blonde hair. When she leaves, so do you. You try to tell yourself it's a coincidence. You check the time on your phone, and see that your mom said "ok" to your text saying you might be late. You watch the woman get into a car for her lift home.

And you cry.

**#10: Because _She's_ there.**

There are so many reasons to sneak vodka into your first staff meeting.

Because you brought a cute little toy crab to school one day, and it was yours, and you cared about it. And she broke it. And she never apologised. You apologised, in fact. For being upset. Nothing really belonged to you, anyway. Nothing really belongs to you.

Because during the school holidays last year, you got upset with your girlfriend. For constantly making jokes at your expense. You texted her about it. She ignored all your texts. She yelled at you for being rude. You apologised. For being rude. For standing up for yourself.

Because one day you got sick of it. And, and you told her, plain and simple, she had to stop or you would leave. And she let you leave. Without a fight! She cared so little she didn't even beg you to stay. 

The real reason you sneak vodka into your first staff meeting is that your abuser is here. And it hurts your heart to refer to her as your abuser, even internally, because the version of her that screamed at you and made you afraid to be yourself is so different to the version of her that you fell in love with. And ever since that first time you saw the bad side of her, you've been searching for her good side, desperately waiting for her approval. And you sit through an entire staff meeting in the hope that you'll gain her approval somehow, and you never do, and your heart breaks in ways you never thought it could break again, when it was already so broken.

You don't have any friends at school. There are no school friends that inspired you to work here. It was all her, it was all Jasper. You applied for a job to be with her, even though she wants nothing to do with you, and you should want nothing to do with her, and she threw you aside the second she couldn't hurt you anymore, and instead of wishing she wasn't abusive you wish you hadn't stood up for yourself.

You're stuck. You're stuck in this cycle forever, aren't you? You will never stop craving her approval. You will never be able to reconcile your abuser with the woman you love and accept that they are one in the same, and you will never be able to stop seeking her out. Because you're broken, aren't you? You can't have normal relationships because you're broken. A piece of shit like you deserves an abuser and an abuser deserves a piece of shit like you. You were meant for each other. But you had to go and fuck it all up.

You sob loudly, and some part of you still hopes that Jasper will come try to comfort you, but she never will again because you fucked up. This is all your fault. 

Your mother texts you, asking if you're okay.

You take out your umbrella to walk home, but it's just as shitty as you expected, and a slight wind causes it to fly out of your hands and then break. You're not bothered to chase after it. Ignoring your mother's texts, you drown the rest of your bottle. And some part of you knows that this is dangerous, that you shouldn't drink so much alone, that you can't get yourself home safely now.

You throw the bottle out and just pray. Pray that your mother doesn't notice your odd behaviour, pray that you're not late home, pray that you don't get lost. But with how drunk you are, there's only on way that can happen.

Your mother can't notice your odd behaviour if she never sees you again. You can't be late home if you're never home. You can't get lost if you're dead.

You stumble toward the busy road. You pray you don't wake up in hospital.

You step out into traffic. Cars struggle to halt because of the slippery roads, but it's too late, it's too late. If they don't kill you, another will. You're ending the cycle now.

You hope that one day, Jasper has to deal with just a fraction of the PTSD that you have to cope with because of her actions.

You hope that the car that hits you belongs to her.


End file.
